The tone of the voice….

The tone of the voice….

For one thing, we don’t get a tone of voice thru our written word.. Be it text, email, or even letters.  Not unless you use a lot of tiny pictures of your emotions to do with the words. And 99.9% of the people don’t use those.  Unless they are on Faeebook.

So with the written word, we lose about half of our communication meanings. And a lot of times feelings get hurt from the written word. Some of that is the fault of the reader. As the reader puts in their own emotion to the words.

I was even accused of being harsh because of what I had wrote.  When I told the reader, I didn’t think I was harsh.. they said well the tone of your note was.  I asked them how did they get that from those words on a piece of paper?  Well, it is the way you are?  I said excuse me? I talk harsh?  Well, you do when you are strong feeling about a issue.  I looked at the person and said.. Wow.. so you are judging by what you THINK I might be feeling.  I told the person I was not mad, or angry when I wrote the note. I told her, that I was just stating a fact.  I asked her if I sounded harsh now as I talked?  She said, well, no.  Do I sound angry?  No… I told her it sadden me, that she automatically felt I was angry without hearing my voice.. And I felt maybe when I wrote things.. I should maybe put smiling faces near the words so to show I was not angry.  She said that would be silly… 

And I also thought .. do I do that too, do I inject the writers emotions when I read what they wrote? I hope not.. Of course if you use capitals.. it gives you the notion, or !! with the words, it gives the urgent of the words.

Then there is the tone of voice when you do speak to someone.  Some people you talk to, it is a soft tone. Business is a little more sharper to get your point over, or softer if you are trying to get your point over with out coming on strong. Talking to a woman is different than talking to a man. With women we tend to be softer, and caring type of emotion words.  With men, because they talk either matter of factly, or strongly, depending on the situation. Men tend to be less emotional as they talk.

Some women tend to take exception to men in their lives, if their man talks softly to a woman. Thinking it is more personal, when that is the furthest from the way the man means his words. Maybe because men have been taught to be respectful of women and their feelings.  So it is a matter of up bring by one’s parents. 

I know I talk probably softer when I talk to my daughter and daughter in laws… where has I have a sharper tone when talking to my son’s. Never thought about it until recently, when talking about the tone of one’s voice and words written.

But it would be true.  Men are from Mars and women are from Venus… and of course there is always the exception.

We won’t even talk about the difference of men talking in the garage over working on a car as appose to talking in public. Some times the same can be said of women when they are solely among women.

 So I guess the moral of this is.. if you feel upset over what someone has wrote, try to think of it from their point of view. If in doubt… ask.. you might be surprised at the emotion that was meant.. and not perceived.